


Core Temperature

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-31
Updated: 2009-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Human body heat creates warmth, does it not? I've heard that's what you do when someone gets hypothermia."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Core Temperature

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here at the deancastiel Warm and Fuzzy quickfire challenge. Shamelessly indulgent hypothermic cuddling fic. ♥

Dean's pretty sure his first mistake was going after the ice spirit without Sam. Not that this is entirely Dean's fault--he and Sam both agreed Dean and Castiel should go after the ice spirit while Sam took on the phantom train.

Stop one friggin' apocalypse, and you get cocky.

He manages to drive the Impala back to the motel, the cold set so far into him it seems to start from his center and move outward, even though the heater's set to high. Castiel keeps glancing over at him, brow furrowed.

"Stop looking at me like that," Dean says, through clenched teeth once they're back at the motel room.

"Your lips are blue," says Castiel.

"No, they're not, it's just the lighting."

He goes into the bathroom, strips down, and gets into a hot shower. Stays in there until his teeth stop chattering so hard. When the feeling starts to return to his fingers, turning his skin red, the pins and needles under his skin make his eyes water. Shit.

Dean gets out, towels down, throws on sweatpants and a long-sleeve t-shirt. Soon as he steps out of the steam of the bathroom, his teeth start chattering again.

Stupid, stupid ice spirit.

He's startled to find Castiel waiting for him, standing right where Dean left him.

"I'm _fine_ ," Dean says. "Sam's on his way back." Some part of his brain whispers that Sam's two hours away, and Dean's a little scared right now because he just can't stop shivering, can't seem to get warm, and he doesn't want to go to a hospital.

"It was an ice spirit," Castiel says, "and the cold you feel is unnatural."

"It'll wear off." Dean pulls back the covers on his bed and crawls under the blankets, curls up with them tight around his shoulders. He's ashamed as the tremors run through his body.

He feels the bed dip, and the warmth coming off Castiel's body radiates like a stove. Maybe it's some freaky angel thing. Then he feels something being draped over him, realizes it's one of the motel's extra blankets, some awful lime green fuzzy thing, pilled from years of usage and washings. It smells like laundry soap.

The shudders slow, but the center of him, somewhere in his chest, still feels frozen and his fingers stiff. Dean closes his eyes, and Castiel shifts. The covers twitch, the bed dips further, and Dean realizes that Castiel has crawled in, arranged his body so he's pressed against Dean's back.

"What the--" Dean cranes his neck to look over his shoulder, to meet Castiel's stare, but he doesn't pull away. "What're you doing?"

"Human body heat creates warmth, does it not? I've heard that's what you do when someone gets hypothermia."

Dean wonders where Castiel learned that much about human medical conditions; he wonders _why_.

"Is this all right?" Castiel frowns.

"I'm really cold," Dean confesses, burying his face against the pillow.

Castiel's arms go around him, pulling him closer. The angel's taken off the trenchcoat; Dean doesn't think he's ever been this close to him without it. Castiel rests his forehead against the nape of Dean's neck, his breath warm against Dean's exposed skin.

"I should've done more to prevent this," Castiel says, after a few moments.

"You pulled me from the water, didn't you?" Dean keeps his eyes closed. The center part of him is warming, and with it, he's feeling something uncomfortable, not totally unpleasant, but awkward with a capital A. He decides to ignore it. "I'm fine. And hey, your thing is smiting demons. No one's expecting you to know how to deal with an ice spirit."

The motel room's quiet except for the soft shush-shush noise of traffic on the highway and the ticking of the radiator beneath the window, the mutter of a radio a few rooms down. Castiel's fingers are curled against Dean's chest. Yeah, definitely awkward, and he feels hyper-aware of things, all of a sudden, the sharpness of Castiel's knee against the back of his leg, the scratch of stubble against the skin at the base of Dean's neck. Yet Dean's also feeling drowsy.

Finally warm, from the inside out, he lets himself fall asleep.


End file.
